Make a Resolution to Improve Your Relationship in 2009

Betty’s New Year, New You Series

Relationship Resolutions

Resolve to improve your relationship this year

-Mandy Panter

Betty’s New Year, New You Series is dedicated to making 2009 your best year ever. Find more articles in the series below.

Everyone makes New Year’s resolutions, but by the second week in January, who can even recall what they were? Well, unless you went out and bought yourself a pricey gym membership. Even if you try to block that from your brain, the membership fees debited from your account each month are there to remind you.

So, this year, instead of making all sorts of impossible promises to yourself, sit down with your guy and make a list of things you two can do together to make your relationship even better. Here’s a starting list:

• Get healthy together. Ignore numbers on the scale and decide together that you’re going to live a healthier lifestyle. Take turns cooking nutritious and delicious dinners for each other. Collaborate on the week’s menu, being sure to experiment with aphrodisiacs like oysters (low in calories, high in protein), dark chocolate (packed with antioxidants), and spices and herbs like nutmeg and rosemary. Yum.

• Don’t forget to flirt. Remember how he’d look at you when you first met? Don’t you want to get that back? We’re all busy, but that’s no excuse to take your partner for granted. He looks good in those new jammies – tell him. His impression of your dad is hilariously dead-on? Ditto. Tell him. Compliments are contagious, and the occasional friendly ass slap will probably be reciprocated too. (If you play your cards right, that is.)

• Have great sex more often. Except in a few rare cases, the frequency of sex between you and your partner goes down exponentially according to the number of years you’ve been together. If you have kids, the drop-off can be even more precipitous. So instead of punishing yourself over that extra five pounds, reward yourself by making more time to get down. Hey, if you do it often enough, you might work off those pounds, anyway!